Author Archives: Michael C. McGreevy

Artist’s Way Exercises

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Probably not too terribly interesting to you guys, but there ya go…

Week One, Exercise Five

Write a letter to the editor in your defense. Mail it to yourself. It is great fun to write this letter in the voice of your wounded artist child: “To whom it may concern: Sister Ann Rita is a jerk and has pig eyes and I can too spell!”

To Whom It May Concern:

I do not understand this exercise. It is poopy. Poopy things are not fun and I do not enjoy doing them. Unless it’s taking a real poopy. That isn’t so bad. I like to read when I’m having a poopy.

Yeah, for real. I’m totally not getting this exercise and I believe it’s one of the reasons I’ve been held up for the last few weeks. Letter to the editor in my defense? What’s up with that? I think it is supposed to be in response to the horror story that I wrote about, but I’m not really sure that I have any particular person I need to reply to in regard to that one. I mean, I’m the only person who made me feel bad there. Nobody else was responsible.

So there ya go, editor. That’s my letter to you and the statement I need to make. You don’t have people bringing you down. You bring yourself down. You are surrounded by people who support you in what you do and believe in you. The only thing stopping you is your own mental blocks.

Which, in the end, is what all of this is about.

Week One, Exercise Eight

Imaginary Lives: If you had five other lives to lead, what would you do in each of them? Whatever occurs to you, jot it down. Do not over think this exercise. The point of these lives is to have fun in them – more fun than you might be having in this one. Look over your list and select one. Then do it this week.

Actor (full-time), Writer, Teacher, Motivational Speaker, Nutritionist

Those wacky New Yorkers are at it again

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Some of you may recall the somewhat unconventional tactics used by the New York City health commissioner in the war against obesity. Not only have they put laws into place that require chain restaurants to post calorie information on their menus, they have banned the use of trans fats in food production. Once they had those rules in place they started a fairly graphic advertising campaign against sugary drinks that showed a stream of fat being poured out of a bottle.  9DNZY6EMJZ6W

On the off chance that you Big Apple residents didn’t get the message the first time, though, the office of the health commissioner is back with a brand new ad.

And it’s worse.

It’s a video.

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General Mills announces plans to reduce sugar levels in many popular cereals

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chocolatecoveredsugarbombs

I have some news for you that may just come as a bit of a shocker, so you may want to brace yourself before reading this.

Many of the breakfast cereals marketed to children have a lot of sugar in them.

I know, I know.  It’s hard to believe, right? I mean, who would have thought that food containing marshmallows or designed to look and taste like chocolate chip cookies might have high amounts of sugar? Besides, all the commercials I watched about breakfast cereal when I was growing up told me that cereal could be part of a balanced breakfast. That means it has to be good for you! Never mind the fact that those statements were made over a scene that included a big glass of orange juice, some toast, and a side of fruit as well.

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Nice Muscle, America!!

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Regular readers of the site may recall a post from a few months ago where I lamented the fact that the disturbingly bizarre Namco/Bandi game Muscle March was not available for purchase in the Western markets. As I said at the time this game really doesn’t fit all too well into the “fitness game” genre that we generally cover here but, frankly, I don’t care. You could burn calories basking in the sheer awesomeness that is Muscle March. I mean, come on! You can play a body building Polar bear in a swimsuit who has his protein shake powder stolen by a football player, working your way through the various obstacles thrown in your path by going into body builder poses! How can a game like that NOT be good for you??

Well soon there will be no need for you to spend hundreds of dollars for a Japanese version of the Wii to experience the awe that is Muscle March!  Namco/Bandi as announced that Muscle March will be available for download next Winter through Nintendos online service, Wiiware.

The only bummer about this particular announcement is the fact that we have to wait so long for it to be released. I suppose the upside is that we have plenty of time to work on our form so that we’re in top shape and ready to bust some serious protein shake stealing butt next Christmas.

Guess it’s time to go speedo shopping.

Slim-Fast recalls all canned products

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slimfastcan_225kvThe company behind the production of the Slim-Fast line of products, Unilever, has announced a voluntary recall of over 10 million of their canned, ready-to-drink Slim Fast meal replacement shakes. Internal quality assurance testing on the drinks found traces of Bacillus Cereus, an unpleasant but non-lethal toxin that can cause nausea and diarrhea in its victims. Bacillus Cereus is traditionally associated with fried rice in Asian and Mexican restaurants but the commonality of the disease is difficult to verify due to the fact that so few people actually report cases of food poisoning to a physician.

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Computer users more likely to be overweight

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Image courtesy of Manuel Cernuda

Image courtesy of Manuel Cernuda

I stumbled across an interesting article over at MSNBC.com this morning while I was doing my daily scan through the numerous feeds I follow. Apparently some scientists over in Australia did a bit of research and came to the startling conclusion that people who spent more than five hours a week using a computer were two and a half times more likely to be obese than people who did not use computers at all.

I understand that next they are going to try and sort out once and for all whether or not that water stuff is actually wet.

In all seriousness, though, this article is yet another piece of information we have confirming what is a rather unfortunate truth for those of us who spend most of our day working and playing in front of a glowing box. Namely, if you’re a heavy computer user you’re considerably more likely to be fat. (In all fairness the same pretty much holds true for any sedentary activity, but there aren’t a lot of people I know who get paid to watch television all day.) We could get into the whole chicken and egg argument about whether computer users are predisposed towards obesity, but the whys and wherefores really do not change the facts of the situation.

The question is – What do we do about it?

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Thanksgiving Cooking Plans…

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This is pretty much a reference for my own use.  Feel free to ignore.

Tonight –

  • Head straight home and get the turkey in the brine.
  • Go to Clearwater to pick up your number and shirt for the Turkey Trot
  • Stop by Publix on the way home to pick up some necessities.  Grab some subs while you are at it.
  • Prepare the spinach casserole and get it to “ready to bake” status
  • Make a loaf of french bread
  • Make the cranberry sauce

Tomorrow

  • Wake up at the ass crack of dawn.
  • Flip the turkey
  • Go run a 5k
  • Come home and start the Pumpkin Soup
  • Bake another loaf of bread
  • Clean
  • Put the Turkey in the oven around 2
  • Take the turkey out when it is done and cover.
  • Put spinach in the oven

It’s called gratitude, and that’s right

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Another exercise I had was to write a thank you letter for one of my happy pieces of encouragement…

As I mentioned in my post yesterday I had a very hard time coming up with three enemies to my creative self-worth due to the fact that I had far more positive artistic influences in my life than negative ones. That said, I had an equally hard time listing three positives because there were a LOT to choose from. I did manage to finally pick three to write down, and of the influences I selected was Salvatore “Sam” Falco.

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It’s my own worst enemy

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Editor’s Note – As part of my work with The Artist’s Way I am occasionally required to complete certain assignments that are intended to help me discover the things that have me “blocked” as an artist.  Unlike the daily exercise of completing 3 pages of long hand in a journal these stories do not, necessarily, have to be private.  As such I figured that since I was writing this anyway I’d go ahead and put some actual content in this journal for a change instead of letting it fester here unused.  Please understand, though, that what I am writing is not necessarily going to be a rational take on my experiences or any kind of plea for help.  On the contrary, these entries are actually part of a conscious effort to improve myself and my self-worth.

I have been asked to describe one of the “monsters” from my past that has held me back as an artist.  I really had to think hard about this because, frankly, I’ve had more support than not in my quest to be an artist. After thinking about it for a while I did manage to come up with my three, and here are the details on one of them…

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EA SPORTS Active special at Amazon.com: Today only!

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EA Sports ActiveIf you’ve thought about picking up a copy of EA SPORTS Active but haven’t pulled the trigger on the actual purchase yet today may be the day to do it.  As part of their “Black Friday Deals Week” Amazon.com is now selling the popular fitness game for only $39.99 (which is $20 off the manufacturer’s suggested retail price).

Amazon is limiting the purchases to one per customer and, if I am reading the site correctly, this offer expires after today (Monday, November 23rd). The odd thing to me is that this is being advertised as a “Black Friday” special. They are calling it a Black Friday Deals Week, but the last time I checked today was Monday, and it’s not even “Cyber Monday.”  I don’t know about you folks, but in kindergarten they taught me that there were seven totally different days in a week, and only one of them was Friday. I just don’t think Friday would be quite as awesome as it is if everyday was Friday.

It is clear that in the mad dash to actually turn some kind of profit in the wake of a horrible economic recession retailers are extending sales well beyond the traditional Day after Thanksgiving madness, but like all things Holiday related the constant push to have the shopping season last longer is getting a bit out of control. Next thing you know we’ll have Black Friday sales in January.